When teenage starlet Willy Gnonto arrived at Elland Road in September amid a fanfare of little more than curiosity and caution, the pint-sized flier was not being hailed as the saviour of Leeds United.
Then just 18, the perceived wisdom was that this most precocious of talents would be signed from Swiss club Zurich in the summer but not join until January, with Jesse Marsch, when asked if the kid was ready for the rigours of a Premier League campaign, declaring emphatically ‘no’.
Gnonto was one for the future, to be tenderly developed while Marsch went out and stocked up on more established forwards from a shopping list featuring such names as Cody Gakpo and Marseille’s Bamba Dieng. Except, of course, Gakpo, Dieng and whoever else was on Marsch’s radar never turned up, and suddenly Gnonto’s development was being hastily rewritten.
Now 19, the raw but talented Italian, blessed with a wonderful football brain, magical, dazzling feet has suddenly become the focal point of Leeds’ bid to stay in the top flight.
He has handled the furore around the problematic Leeds song in his name, but only time will tell whether this snip at £3.8million can shoulder on his 5ft 5in frame the responsibility of providing the inspiration and the goals that will keep Leeds up. Contrary to his manager’s fears he is thriving in the challenge.
‘He plays like he’s seven feet tall,’ crowed Marsch after Gnonto had delivered another sparkling display, albeit in a 2-1 defeat, at Aston Villa on Friday. ‘He’s aggressive, dangerous, good on the ball, clever and intensive against the ball.’
There were nine more dribbles at Villa Park, way more than anyone else, and having emerged as Leeds’ most potent attacking threat, so have come the tackles.
Already he finds himself in the top 10 of most fouled players in the top flight. And so there were more plaudits from Sky pundit Gary Neville, who said: ‘To see someone so mature so young is very unusual in that position.
‘Watching him so closely, his understanding of where to be, his choice of pass, when to run with it, his awareness of teammates, it’s really good.’
High praise indeed for a teenager who has made just five starts and seven appearances in total in the Premier League, a competition that has exposed flaws and weaknesses in many a promising talent but seems to have brought out the best in Gnonto.
It has been a swift and remarkable journey for the son of Cote d’Ivorian parents who arrived in Baveno, a village in northern Italy, where the footballing prodigy grew up.
He trained on the private grounds of a church where his parents worked as caretakers, with his father having paid tribute to the priest whose generosity helped Gnonto to develop his talent.
Though his heart was always set on football — he joined the Inter Milan youth academy aged nine — his parents ensured his mind was still focused on education.
He learned Latin and Greek during a classically-based education, can speak English, French and German and even when he was basking in the glory of making his Italy debut in June, his father made sure he went away with plenty of exercise books.
Gnonto had moved from Inter to Zurich in the Swiss Super League and it was the 10 goals in 33 appearances in the 2021-22 season which advertised his promise, and Leeds gambled first.
Roberto Mancini, Italy’s European Championship-winning coach, thinks the world of him — he has played more matches for Italy than league matches for Leeds, and when he found the net for the Azzurri against Germany in June, he became his country’s youngest goalscorer.
Mancini described Gnonto as knowing how to play football ‘like very few others’, though has pleaded for patience.
Marsch doubtless would have urged the same, but needs must, and Leeds need a player who can keep them in the Premier League. And young Willy Gnonto, just turned 19, might just be that man.